Human Spaceflight Ball in Obama’s Court

The blue-ribbon panel President Obama appointed to look into NASA’s human spaceflight plans is done with its work, posting the final report to its website Thursday.

Weighing in at 157 pages, it examined the Bush-era Constellation program from top to bottom, although it released most of its key findings last month in an executive summary.

Top among them is that NASA does not have enough money to fund a human spaceflight program. The agency needs at least $3 billion more each year to accomplish the goals of exploring beyond low-earth orbit, while maintaining the International Space Station and other scientific programs.

While the entire human spaceflight program costs each citizen a mere seven cents per day, according to the report, getting more money for NASA has been a struggle. There are signs, though, that the Obama administration could provide a little more cash for human space exploration.

“[Obama] has assured me NASA will get enough money to do what it does best: Go explore the heavens,” Bill Nelson, Senator from Florida said in a YouTube message to his constituents.

The panel, led by Norm Augustine, has not received a warm welcome from some members of Congress. Congress had already expressed its support for NASA’s current path, so the Obama administration’s attempt to rethink that plan struck many as unnecessary at best, deleterious to the space program at worst.

“While I look forward to reading the Augustine panel’s final report, Congress has already made its decisions on the issues considered by the panel,” said Gabrielle Giffords, a Democrat from Arizona, who heads the House subcommittee on Space, in a statement sent to Wired.com. “Now that both internal and external independent reviews have confirmed that the Constellation program is being well executed, we know what needs to be done. Let’s get on with it and cease contemplating our collective navels.”

Giffords, who is married to a former NASA astronaut, did indicate that she looked forward to working with Obama to “usher in a grand new era of exploration and science.”

The Obama administration did not tip its hand about when or what its ultimate plans for space might be.

“The President has on numerous occasions confirmed his commitment to human space exploration, and the goal of ensuring that the nation is on a vigorous and sustainable path to achieving our boldest aspirations in space,” said Nick Shapiro, a White House spokesman, in an e-mail to Wired.com. “Against a backdrop of serious challenges with the existing program, the Augustine Committee has offered several key findings and a range of options for how the nation might improve its future human space flight activities.”

Three key bones of contention remain between the Augustine panel and members of the House like Giffords. The first is the role of commercial space companies like Bigelow and SpaceX in taking astronauts to low-earth Orbit. The Augustine panel had a rather bullish view on their capabilities.

“There is little doubt that the U.S. aerospace industry, from historical builders of human spacecraft to the new entrants, has the technical capability to build and operate a crew taxi to low-Earth orbit,” they wrote.

Giffords, meanwhile, said she wanted to make “clear that we are not prepared to have our astronauts’ access to space held hostage to purchases of seats from non-existent commercial providers.”

A second disagreement exists over the role of the Ares I rocket. Most of the Augustine members felt that it was an unwise investment. Instead, they recommended that a modified version of a heavier rocket, the Ares V Lite, should be used for trips to the moon. That would effectively kill the Ares I program, begun under Scott “Doc” Horowitz, who left the agency in 2007.

“The Committee finds the Ares V Lite used in the dual mode for lunar missions to be the preferred reference case,” they wrote.

The House Science and Technology Committee chair, Bart Gordon, a Democrat from Tennessee, on the other hand, implicitly argued for the status quo, absent any findings of malfeasance. Just provide “adequate resources” and leave the program alone.

“[The Augustine] panel had assessed NASA’s Constellation program and found it to be ‘well managed’ and a program that is ‘executable and would carry out its objectives’ if adequate resources are provided.”

The last major difference between the Augustine commission and what Congress voted for in Constellation is the way NASA would get back to Mars. The Bush vision was to land on the moon first, learn from that experience, and head to Mars. The report gives a tepid endorsement of the viability of the plan.

“A long-duration exploration of the Moon is a step towards Mars, but not a giant step, and not the only possible step,” they wrote.

The Augustine report clearly favors a different option they term the “Flexible Path,” which would prioritize getting to near-earth objects first, then allow for landing-less trips to the Moon or Mars. On the criteria they created to evaluate the program, the Flexible Path clearly outscores the program of record (see image above).

Giffords, again, was ready with a response saying, “In endorsing the Constellation architecture, Congress made clear that it saw a return to the Moon as just the first step in a flexible program of human and robotic exploration of the solar system.”

Even with this long-awaited report in hand, the future of NASA’s human spaceflight program will remain murky until the Obama administration — or its Office for Science and Technology Policy — makes a move.

An OSTP spokesman declined to comment on the report and White House spokesman, Shapiro, could not provide a timeline for a decision.

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